Coping Mechanisims
by eirabach
Summary: Everyone has their own way of coping. Maybe this is hers.


**Originally posted on tumblr, where I'm mahstatins. Just trying to get everything in the same place!**

 **M for a reason.**

"You stupid, _stupid -_ what were you _thinking?"_

Emma tugs furiously at the leather of Hook's vest to get to the slick, red flesh beneath, ignoring his hiss of pain as she presses her palm against his wound.

"I was _thinking,"_ he pants, "that I could save your life," she increases the pressure of her hands and he lets out a pained groan, "had I known you'd try to kill me regardless I may have thought twice."

"Haha very fucking funny," she spits, looking around frantically for something to use as a bandage, "you were reckless and an idiot and _stupid."_

"Yes I think you mentioned that already," he says through clenched teeth, "but do continue. Nothing a man likes to hear more on his deathbed than a beautiful woman berating him."

"You're not dying," she says with more conviction than she feels as the blood runs thick between her fingers, "we just need to patch you up till Regina gets back and then she can fix this."

He lifts his head slightly, seemingly to examine where the lost boy's dagger had sliced between his ribs, and then lets it drop back against the damp leaves of the forest floor.

"Better hand me my flask, love, because if I'm waiting on Regina to save me I'm a dead man already."

They'd been ambushed by the lost boys as they approached Pan's camp, Pan himself having apparently already fled with Henry as collateral. It had been melee fighting, two or three against one at some points, and Emma had tried valiantly to imitate Hook and David's natural swordsmanship but in the end she'd been overcome, and Hook had taken the blow meant for her.

That's why her bloodstained knees won't stop shaking, of course. That's why she can feel bile rising up to choke her. Because it could have been her ( _should_ have been her) bleeding out in the dirt and muck. Not him.

"It's all right you know," Hook says softly, "I'd do it again."

She shakes her head sharply, a sob caught in the back of her throat, "Don't talk like that, you're going to be _fine_ , you're going to be…"

He smiles at her, a thin dark line running from the corner of his mouth, and lifts his hand just far enough to cover her trembling fingers with his own, "Emma, it's all right."

 _Not him not him not him,_ her heart and her mind and her goddamn magic all combine in a cacophony of terrified pleading, _not him, please not him._

" _No!"_ She shudders at the vehemence of it, at the way her fingers slip and clench under his loosening grip, at the way magic roars in her ears and sparks from her skin, "don't you _dare."_

He looks sorry for a moment, eyes gone soft, a little furrow between his brows, and then his eyes roll back, his face goes slack, and golden light bursts from the palms of her hands.

It almost hurts. There's a sting and a burn to it, her fingers clawing at his skin as the light flows from her and into him, his gasp back to consciousness enough to make her want to stop, but she can't. She falls back on her haunches, magic spitting and fizzling from her hands, magic she can't control, magic she doesn't want, never wanted, magic that hurts and burns and -

"Emma!" He's followed her lead, up on his knees where she's fallen back, all wide-eyed wonderment and nearly as scared as her, "Emma it's okay, it's okay. Calm down, love."

He takes one of her hands in his, squeezing it until it curls into a fist and the sparks splutter and die, and tugs the other towards him with his hook. She realises what he's about to do a moment before he does it, but he doesn't give her time to warn him. Instead he pulls her glowing, shaking hand towards his lips and places the gentlest of kisses to her palm. The magic splutters out like a fire quenched in water.

"You're just fine," he says. As if she's the one who's back from the brink, not him.

They stay like that for a beat, his hand holding hers, his breath hot on her skin, until she can't bear it any longer and lets her eyes drop from his to examine his wound, or at least, where his wound had been. His vest and shirt are tattered and stained still, but the flesh beneath is whole and pale and perfect, and oh god she wants to kiss it. To run her fingers over his skin until she knows every contour, every twitch of the muscle beneath it.

She lifts her head back up to make eye contact. It seems safer somehow.

It isn't.

She doesn't know who moves first, only that they're pressed together in every way they can be, her fingers scrabbling for purchase on the torn edges of his vest, his fist in her hair, the relentless tug setting something warm to unfurling in her abdomen as he lets her taste the blood and rum on his tongue.

"What did you do?" He breathes, his lips still only a hair's breadth from hers.

She smiles, breathing in as he breathes out, and uses her body weight to push him back until he's sitting with his legs folded beneath him.

"Magic," she pants against the line of his jaw, running her hands up and over his shoulders until his coat comes free and slides down his arms, "obviously."

The coat catches on the edge of his brace, and she pulls away slightly to pull at it irritably.

"Come on," she huffs at the leather, "we don't have all day."

"Emma?"

They don't, they don't have all day, or any of the day, or any time at all. The others may have given chase to the lost boys while she'd dragged Hook to safety, but they could be back at any moment - friend or foe. More importantly, at any second Emma could realise what she's doing, could slam up her walls and laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the idea of fucking Captain Hook in the Neverland undergrowth. Surely she will realise at any moment what a terrible idea this is. Surely.

The coat won't give, so she shoves at his arm in annoyance and sends him sliding backwards onto his elbows. He stares up at her, eyes almost as confused as they are lust-blown, while she catalogues the lines of his body.

"Emma?" He repeats, "What do you mean?"

She cocks her head, smiling slightly at the pink flush that has spread across his cheeks and the tips of his ears. He doesn't look much like a feared pirate captain now, not with her straddling his thighs and reaching for his laces. He looks like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her walls to slam up. She wonders which of them is more surprised when they don't.

"What does it look like I mean?" She palms him through the leather, watching the flutter of his eyelashes and the way he bites down on his lip as she strokes up towards where her other hand struggles to unknot the leather ties. "Unless you don't wan-"

He surges up to meet her, cutting her off with lips and teeth and tongue, his body heaving where her hands are trapped between them.

"You have no idea," he growls into the skin behind her ear, his hand climbing her side to curl over her breast, "about the things I want."

She thinks of the smooth skin of his chest, the skin that she'd knotted together, and of the way she'd wanted to lick and kiss and taste.

"Nuh huh," she manages as he worries a bruise into her collarbone, "me first, pirate."

She manages to free one hand just enough to push at his abdomen until he gets the hint, and leans back until he can rest on his elbows again, this time with his legs spread in front of him and a suggestively raised eyebrow.

"By all means, be my guest," he drawls, "so long as you're prepared for me to return the favour."

Emma squeezes her thighs together against the growing ache, her skin hot and tingling where he's touched her. She lifts her own eyebrow in return, " _Very_ prepared."

He licks his lips, slow and lewd.

"Oh good."

Her hands are at his laces again before she can think too hard about this second one time thing (and if she's promising a third, or a fourth, or _god whatever_ ). Meanings and feelings lost in the strain of flesh against leather and the tingle in her fingertips.

"These aren't exactly easy access," she grouses, undoing the last knot.

"Why Swan," he looks at her with hooded eyes, "what sort of a boy do you take me for?"

She reaches down, takes him solidly in hand, and smirks at the way his mouth drops open, "Oh I don't know, this sort?"

He makes a sputtering sort of sound, like he might be rallying for a comeback, so she cuts him off with the softest press of her lips just to the very tip of his cock. The sputter turns into a whine.

"Something to say?" She says, looking up at him through her lashes with her tongue between her teeth. He shakes his head sharply. "Didn't think so."

It's been years, actual years, since she's done anything like this. She's almost embarrassed, irrationally afraid she might forget what comes next. But then as she licks a stripe from base to tip there's the familiar taste of heat and salt, and as she swirls her tongue around the head she can hear the satisfying thud of a hook embedding itself into the soft ground. She allows herself a small victorious smile before dipping her head to take him deeper. When she hollows out her cheeks he makes a garbled sound that might be her name, and when she hums in reply he shifts underneath her to brush at a strand of hair that's sticking to her forehead.

"Emma," he hisses, "Emma, look at me."

Before she'd thought eye contact was safer, but now when his cock is heavy against her tongue and her thighs are damp with sweat and want she can't bear to, afraid of what she'll see (of what she'll show him) if she does. No, she won't look. She pushes harder, opens wider, swallows the whole of his length and makes him moan like sin itself.

"Emma," he begs as she rises up to lap at the slit and brings her hand to curl around the base, " _please_."

She concentrates on the way her breath stirs the hairs on his stomach, and closes her eyes.

He moves quicker than she might have expected he'd be able to with her mouth millimeters from his cock and his hook buried in the soft soil, launching himself away from her and then back, back until he's pushed her bodily against a nearby rock, his smile one of grim victory as her eyes fly open in surprise.

"What are you doing?" she pants as his arms come up to cage her in, his cock bobbing hard and damp against her stomach as he straddles her.

"I could as you the same question, Swan," his voice a low growl as he nips at her ear and his hand reaches down to fumble at the button of her jeans, "What are we doing?"

"If you don't know, then I don't know what to tell you," she gasps, ending on a strangled keen as he finally slips his hand beneath her clothes and the cool of his thumb ring hits her heated flesh. Her eyes close again, almost against her will.

"Just another one time thing is it?" his teeth pull at her tank and bra strap, his tongue laving over the skin he exposes, "Don't even want to look at me?"

"It's not," she bites hard at her lower lip and squeezes her eyes even tighter shut, "it's not like that."

"No?" He shifts his weight to grant him easier access, parting her folds and pressing languid circles over the places where she's aching and desperate, "So look at me, then." he pauses his ministrations, "Please."

Her lids are heavy and he comes into focus slowly, allowing her to concentrate on the way his hair sticks to his forehead and up at the back, the sheen of sweat across his cheeks, his ridiculous red ears, the way his swollen, kiss-bitten lips form words.

"That's better," he says, more than just lust in the soft way he speaks, and she fights the urge to close her eyes again, "now tell me what you want."

He taps against her clit and she wonders if it's possible to die from all the many many things she _wants_.

"I hate this place," she says as she grinds down against his too-gentle fingers, "I hate that I'm here, and I hate that Henry's here, and I hate that you almost _died_ here, and I just want, I just want - "

Words fail her as he curls a single finger inside her, and she watches the cocky turn of his mouth as he strokes her, her mouth falling open on wordless sighs.

"Well, spit it out, love."

Does he have the right to be this irritating while he's stoking this fire within her?

(He probably thinks she likes it. She probably does.)

"I just _want_ , okay?"

He beams at her like her bitter admittance is the most beautiful thing he's ever heard before leaning down to press wet, open kisses to the line of her throat.

"Go on then," he tells the hollow of her throat, the rise of her breasts, "I'm yours for the taking."

He doesn't have to tell her twice.

Her body screams in displeasure at the loss of his touch as she pulls away, but it's only for a moment and then his hook is cold against her back before sliding to her ass, and her jeans are hanging around one ankle as she swings herself over him, and it's awkward and silly and _fuck. Fuck._ She'd forgotten this, the burn and the stretch as she takes him in and the power she feels racing up her spine as his head falls back.

She forces thumbprints into the exposed skin of his chest as she rises and falls above him, shifting and grinding until stars spark at the edges of her vision and she falls forward to bury her face against his neck.

"That's it, love," he mumbles into her hair as he bends his knees and thrusts her closer towards the light that bleeds through her eyelids, "take what you need."

So she does.

Afterwards, when she's dressed, and satiated, and still in that bubble of peace that follows a really impressive orgasm she runs her finger carefully over the purple bruise that's blooming where his neck and shoulder meet.

"Someone will see that."

"Let them," he hasn't bothered to move except to tuck himself away when she'd risen, shakey and nervous, from his lap, content just to lie back and look at her as if she's hung the moon.

"What are you going to tell them, that Pan's minions have changed their tactics from bows and arrows to something a bit more…"

She gropes for the word. Hook raises an eyebrow.

"Adult?"

She rolls her eyes at him, and rubs her fingers together in anticipation of the magic she'll have to channel to heal it. He must sense what he plan is, because catches her fingers in his with a gentle.

"Don't."

"Hook - "

"No-one will be looking at me that closely," he says, "just leave it, will you? Allow me that much."

"A battle scar?" she asks, only half joking.

He shrugs at her, all careful consideration and knowing eyes, and her heart seizes, "If that's what you want it to mean. You called me by my name you know."

"I call you by your name all the time," she says, brusquely.

"My real name. When you -"

"Okay," she says, desperate to head him off before he leads them both down a path where she's too afraid to follow, "okay maybe I did. Does it matter?"

He looks up at her, looking like the personification of debauchery and sin, and smiles at her like she's been sent to save him and damn herself.

"Aye," he whispers, "it matters."

"Emma!" Her father's voice seems to boom through the small clearing, jolting them both to attention. She leaps to her feet.

"Oh god," She doesn't like the way her voice makes her sound so weak and soft and well-fucked, so she clears her throat and tries again, "oh god they're here!"

She scrubs at the corner of her mouth, and wipes her palms on her muddy jeans. Killia- _Hook_ doesn't move, just lies there half propped against the mossy boulder in his tattered leathers like a pornographic advertisement for what they've been up to.

"They're _coming_!" She hisses, gesturing to his undone laces.

Hook stretches languidly and grins, "No Swan I think you'll find it was we who were - "

With a silent scream she drops back to her knees and begins desperately trying to pull him back into whatever passes for decency with him. "Stop giggling!" she spits as his stomach shakes with half-suppressed laughter, "they'll - "

"They'll?"

"Dad!" She jumps back, pulling the final knot tight with a flourish, "Hi! We were just - "

David looks from her flustered, sweaty face to Hook's horrendously smug smirk and draws his sword.

"Go on," he says.

"Hook was injured and I was checking he was ok," she pinches at Hook's elbow where David can't see.

"Indeed," says Hook, instilling that one word with more innuendo than she thought possible.

"He doesn't look very injured," David says, lifting the point of his sword towards Hook's throat, "yet."

"Well, mate, that would be because of your _very_ talented daughter here. She healed me right up, see," Hook pokes at his chest, "good as new."

"How fortunate," David says, "because we still have a use for you." He turns to Emma and she manages to scrabble to her feet without her weak joints giving her away. "We've discovered Pan's plan."

"Okay," she takes a slightly unsteady step, "let's regroup and go."

She sets her shoulders as she follows in her father's footsteps and tries to ignore the way the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and her body throbs when Hook draws too close behind her. Even when they reunite with the others - Regina and Gold amongst them - he stays within the circle of her personal space.

"Thank you," he breathes into her ear when Neal and her parent's aren't casting dirty looks his way.

"For what?" She asks, barely moving her lips, "The healing or the - "

He stops her with a touch on her elbow that sends the blood singing through her veins and electricity firing along her skin.

"Thank you."

She licks her dry lips, and lifts her eyes to his for the first time since she'd let desire overtake reason. They're wide and blue and _honest_ in a way that sets her heart hammering.

And maybe it's magnetism, or magic, or just good old-fashioned sex appeal, but she can't help the way she sways towards him, or fight the urge to run her tongue over her lips when she answers.

"Anytime."


End file.
